


Normies gonna norm

by A Certain No One (The_Marvellous_Hyolf)



Series: RENimagined stand-alones & one-shots [1]
Category: Shall We Date?: Obey Me!
Genre: Comedy, Gay Male Character, Gen, M/M, Male MC, No romance just subtext, Original Character(s), Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 17:34:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22347253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Marvellous_Hyolf/pseuds/A%20Certain%20No%20One
Summary: Based on a Tumblr prompt: swapping anime recs with Levi!Though due to the fact that Ren has no interest in moe girls, the swap isn't going as well as it could. Espiecially since Ren has been busy binge-watching the world's whole supply of BL... in secret, of course.
Series: RENimagined stand-alones & one-shots [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719370
Comments: 13
Kudos: 71





	Normies gonna norm

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [Obingo Me](https://violin-and-schoolwork.tumblr.com/post/189710932171) anime rec swap prompt on Tumblr!

“You MUST watch this.” Leviathan pushed the DVD box into Ren’s hands. “I can’t believe you haven’t watched it yet!”

“Levi…” Ren wasn’t really sure if he wanted to bring the demon down. Not with all these sparkles and stars flying around whenever Leviathan was infodumping on his favourite shows. But they’ve been swapping the reviews and recommendations for weeks and Ren couldn’t take all those magical girls and panty shots anymore and Leviathan apparently wanted to convert him to his moe girls religion. Which was impossible as Ren had zero interest in girls, be it 2D or 3D.

He stared at the DVD in his hands for a good moment, before he finally sighed and shook his head.

“I’d love to, but it’s the twentieth show about magical girls you’ve lent me…”

The stars and sparkles disappeared, replaced with almost touchable air of disapproval and judgement. Here we go again. Ren sighed again.

“Of course a normie like you wouldn’t appreciate this masterpiece.”

Ren bit his tongue not to spill what he’d been doing for the last few weeks. Leviathan would very likely agree it wasn’t a normie activity, but Ren had serious doubts regarding admitting to anyone he’d been marathoning his BL and hard yaoi collection. And regarding the fact that the collection was enough to keep him occupied for a week.

“Anyway, what about the movie?”, he tried to shake off the feeling of anxiety about his true hobbies. “How did you like it?”

“Not… really my taste.” Leviathan shrugged. “I don’t watch things with such a slow pace…”

“Guessed that much,” Ren tried to hide his disappointment, but probably very ineffectively. Otherwise Leviathan wouldn’t panic.

“But it wasn’t t-that bad!,” he stuttered. “It was good! Actually very good! I liked it!”

“No need to pretend, Levi.” Ren snickered at this reaction. “Not everyone has the same taste, right? Don’t worry about it.”

“As if I’d worry!” Leviathan huffed. “And I’m… not pretending. I actually… wanted to ask if you have more of this director.” Ren raised his eyebrows. “Everyone needs a change of pace sometimes! I might as well give it a try. Not because it’s your favourite.”

“Yeah. Right.” He nodded with a solemn expression, not buying it at all.

“So for next time, I’ll check out the newest movie. Now! I’ll lend you that DVD.” Leviathan pushed the box with probably at least four DVDs into Ren’s hands. A very pink box, with lots of fluttering skirts on the cover.

“Spare meee,” Ren groaned. “Not another magical girls show…”

“You just don’t know what’s good.” The demon huffed again, offended. “I guess it is a waste to give you any good show to watch.”

“You said it yourself, everyone needs a change of pace, right? How about that battle shounen series on this shelf?” Ren pointed to the complete collection of world’s longest anime ever, trying to suck up the anger boiling in his veins.

“You want to watch that?”

“Yeah, piqued my interest! You like it, right?” He tried to sound chirpy as usual and just let the anger die down. But it was a stupid question, if Leviathan didn’t like it, he wouldn’t have a whole shelf with all released seasons. But he somehow didn’t seem convinced. “How about that?”

“Well, there’s no helping it,” Levi sighed and shook his head. “I’ll lend you that one. But what did I expect. Normies have normie tastes and nothing can be done…”

“Normie this, normie that!” Ren spit the words out before he managed to bite his tongue and swallow them again, like he’d been since the beginning of their anime exchange. “I’m NOT a normie!”

But he wasn’t taking it back. He was so not going to take it back, not again. He’d had more than enough of that.

Leviathan just watched the outburst, shocked – after all he never had a chance to see any human furious, and especially not this always perky human. He just stayed silent and didn’t say anything for a long second. For a second – before blowing up too.

“Totally not, absolutely not, yeah right! I see a normie, I call it a normie!”

“Then your eyes tricked you!” Ren grabbed the front of the demon’s shirt as he shouted to his face. “I’ll have you informed that I’m the only person in the human world who marathoned every! single! BL anime! ever! produced and did it TWICE! And since last week I’m going for a THIRD record!

“You dare to challenge me?” Leviathan slapped his hand away, just to do the same. “Want to beat me at my own game?,” he hissed, his face so close their noses were almost touching. “Bring it on!”

“You so sure about it?”

“…”

“…”

“Wait. BL?”

And suddenly Ren realised he’d just spilled his most hidden secret.

And suddenly Leviathan realised he was actually doing a pretty pre-BL thing so he released Ren from his grasp and stumbled as he took a few hasty steps back.

“Well, okay, nevermind.” Ren could hear his own voice high-pitched as never before. “I’ll watch the magical girls. Ahaha. Yeah. We’re good. Are we good?”

“…” Leviathan only glared at him, baffled and probably seriously shellshocked from the revelation.

“Levi?” Ren’s heart sank. He should have known. He should have known Leviathan would be disgusted. Otakus watch anime for cute girls, not for guys banging on screen. And there was a huge difference between them and fujoshi… or fudanshi, as he was. A difference of respect as well. Because there was no respect, mostly. That’s why he was hiding it in the first place.

Great. Just great. He just blew the only friendship that let him open up at least a bit about the human world’s pop-culture. Now everything’s over. It has to be.

“Levi?”, he repeated softly.

“D-d-did I-I just… agreed on w-watching…” Levi was getting redder and redder every word he said, “the world’s… whole s-supply… of BL? With two g-guys… k-k-kissing?”

“S-seems like that.” Ren confirmed, but kept for himself that kissing wasn’t usually the last step the characters would be taking on screen. But maybe… better not add fuel to the fire.

”Is it very different from dating sims? Not that much, right? Just one doesn’t have boobs.” He laughed nervously. “It isn’t that different. Right? Right?!”

But Leviathan didn’t seem to agree.

On the other hand, he wasn’t trying to argue the point either. He was only getting more and more flustered, no matter how Ren tried to reason with him.

Probably because it was totally nothing like Leviathan’s dating sims.

But… was it a lost case after all? Well, at least he didn’t mention the bara stash. Yeah. That… could have been worse. Much worse. Positive thinking. Positive thinking was the key.

But he was, at that moment, feeling nothing even close to positive.

”We can forget this conversation.” Ren sighed, hanging his head. “Please, let’s just forget this conversation. I’m a total normie. No fudanshi at all. The normiest of the normies. Feel free to call me a normie whenever you want.”

“…I’tch it.” The demon mumbled with a barely audible voice, averting his eyes and raising a hand to cover his face.

“What?”

“I-I’ll w-watch it.” Leviathan avoided his gaze and looked aside, pouting for some unknown reason, still impressively pink in the face.

“Whoa whoa, wait, you just cannot do it without preparation!”

“Wha…!”

Okay, this might have sounded wrong in… some contexts they both seemed to be actually thinking about. This likely sounded very wrong. No, _definitely_ sounded very wrong. Ren felt his cheeks burning with a blush as impressive as Levi’s and Levi himself was probably reaching some world record of the shade of red one’s face can turn.

“I-I-I mean, if you really, really want to, I can recommend something! One something!” Ren flapped his hands in panic. Well, he didn’t exactly know what was the point of the gesture, but it worked somehow. Leviathan was at least a bit calmer now, but still scarlet like a lobster and hiding his face in his hand.

“I… okay.”

Considering the impressive red colour on Leviathan’s face, Ren mentally excluded all raunchy stuff he watched in the last week and recommended something sweet and romantic instead, and as good as he could find.

Little did he know how flustered Leviathan got while watching it later.

And how flustered Leviathan got upon researching some very _very_ wrong series a bit later.

**Author's Note:**

> Betareading: @reneotomegirl, @super-gay-waffles on Tumblr and sugarbungaius! Thank you!
> 
> Cross-posted on [Tumblr](https://creations-of-a-certain-no-one.tumblr.com/post/190387940598/)!


End file.
